Tubular show at the 2011 Zicatela Pro

Deep tube riding performances pumped another day of action at the 2011 Agit/Turbo Zicatela Pro, held in 4-to-6 waves at Puerto Escondido, Mexico. The best 16 riders have already been chosen.

The Round 4 will feature a series of eight man-on-man heats. Magno Oliveira and Dave Hubbard, seeds No. 1 and 2 respectively, were the only competitors to win all of their leaderboard phase heats. Dave Winchester managed to win his Round 3 heat today and secure himself the 3rd seed slot into Round 4.

Mitch Rawlins also won his Round 3 heat, posting the highest wave score of the day, a high-flying invert, rewarded by the judges with 8.25 points out of 10. Rawlins shares a combined Leaderboard score of 14 points with fellow Australians Ben Player, Joe Clarke, Ryan Hardy and Michael Novy, who have all won their Round 3 heats.

In 9th position, Clarke is the highest seeded trialist, ahead of fellow Queenslander, Tom Rigby in 12th spot. Rigby, who has put on a stellar performance throughout the Leaderboard phase, is a strong contender on the GQS tour. With consistent performances like this, Rigby is looking good to qualify for the 2012 GSS.

Local riders, Edwin Morales and Ulises Rodrigues were unfortunate with an early exit in the Grand Slam, but forged a respectable name for themselves and any future Mexican talent to compete on the IBA World Tour.

Leaderboard standouts, Mark McCarthy and Dallas Singer have surprisingly bowed out of the event, narrowly falling short of the crucial top 16 cut-off. McCarthy seeded 3rd on the GSS World Tour rankings and Singer seeded 5th, both will be looking toward the GSS event in Sintra, Potugal (22 – 28 Aug), to improve on their result.

Current No. 1 seed in the World, Guilherme Tamega, finished Round 3 in 8th position and is looking forward to the final days. "The paddle out is really hard. The bigger it gets the harder it gets, but if you get the right wave, you are stoked", said Tamega.